Release Notes "Last Man Standing" (Release 0.46.5)

For a long time, we had to focus on software development that was required to build the stable foundation of the product. These were things like cloud infrastructure, the actual OS of the remote, RF communication, production tests, lots of low-level coding, resource management and much much more.

Just a short while ago we moved to the phase where the really cool stuff - the user-facing features - got much more time allocation. In the coming weeks, exciting things are happening due to that. Based on your feedback via Planet NEEO, we have prioritized the implementation of new devices and features. Some of these will be released to our beta team this week.

With today's release of 0.46.5, we are publishing a variety of fixes and changes for Sonos, it comes along with Sonos and Spotify fixes which will result in a better user experience immediately.

Some Highlights

Sonos Instant Favourites.

The best UI always provides the shortest and clearest way to the goal you want to achieve. In case of music, we want you to be able to come home, press two buttons max and have the right music for your mood playing. If you do that with an app it’s just too inconvenient and it takes many more steps. With NEEO, you pick up the NEEO remote which is automatically activated, you choose Sonos and the first screen you see is the album art of your personal 4 favorites music choices. Instead of doing the same many steps again and again just to get to your favorite music - just one click and the music starts playing. You don’t need to modify a queue or anything like this. Pressing these favorites will take care of everything. It’s a beautiful experience because it is so simple.

You can create these instant favorites out of any station, album, favorite, song or playlist from any streaming service available!

There are still some clean-ups to, features to complete and some edge case bugs to fix for this. The next firmware release which includes many of these improvements should be just around the corner (always depending on beta testing).

Sonos Volume Control in any recipe over IP

Some of you reached out because your setups required the ability to control the Sonos Volume from other recipes than the Sonos recipe itself. We listened and here is the outcome: You may now use the Sonos Volume in the step “Use Volume…” in any recipe. This is useful when using a Sonos Amp or a Sonos Connect and especially for the Sonos Playbar as you will no longer need the IR based driver at all.

Spotify Playback

Thanks to your feedback we found a country-specific issue with Spotify Playback which added wrong links to the playlist. This is now fixed and Spotify should work all over the world.

Screen Dimming

The automated screen dimming which is coming with this release will not only result in a better experience in dark environments, it will also bring along better battery life. We would very much like to get feedback on this topic from you. Should we dim more or less what do you think?

Backlight is automatically dimmed according to the ambient light sensor

Remote now automatically goes to 50% brightness if battery is low

Reworked “You can now use your controller” screen

Updated Systeminfo View

Improved Recovery Mode

Z-WAVE

Low battery warnings are now shown in the event log

Queue set parameter for Z-Wave Configuration for battery-powered devices

Display correct error messages when learning mode times out

Adjusted Inclusion/Exclusion timeouts to improve reliability

Updated Device Database and added additionally requested devices

How to update your NEEO

Once the update is available it will show in your NEEO App on the top right with a red dot and an exclamation mark. You just need to follow the steps in the NEEO App and then on the NEEO Remote. We have prepared a little guide . Be aware that it may take a few hours until your NEEO shows the update, not all devices do download the update at the same time, so give it some time :).

I hope you all like that and as said above - these features continue to evolve quite a bit now. Just a little little bit of additional beta testing needed to get to that massive firmware release which will most likely be 0.47. You can look forward to this already.

Dimming screen was on my list of suggestions. Good work, I'm looking forward to seeing it work and something tells me I'll be in the "more dim" or "user adjustable" camp...I hate a blast of light hitting me in my eyes when watching in a dark room.

Bhushan Ahire It can't be controlled via the NEEO with this Software Release. There is no Bluetooth Feature implemented, therefor you need to Control it via the original Remote. The Control Feature will come wit a future Firmware! This Software contains Bug Fixes and Network Stabilitys only!

I installed this update and now I can't keep my Brain connected with the WiFi hidden. I have my WiFi network setup as a hidden network and it was working fine on the previous version of the Brain but with this update I get the Brain connected with the WiFi network visible and then as soon as I hide the network the iOS app on my iPhone can't find the Brain anymore. I tried unhiding and hiding the network a couple of times and each time the same thing happens.

Keenan Hinz Did you allready try to readd the WiFi Credentials after the Update? Is your NEEO Brain still conected to the WiFi (did you see it in the Router?) Is the Brain only WiFi Connected or also Wired?

Did the Brain changed the IP Adress after the Software Update? Sometimes the App stuggles, when the IP Changes but should work fine again, when you restart it and it hase found the Brain once.

Markus Mahr Yes, I already re-added the WiFi credentials and had it connected to WiFi again but as soon as I hide my WiFi network then it gets disconnected again. Before the latest update I was connected to WiFi with my hidden network without any problems. For now I have connected the ethernet cable and have it working but it sure would be nice to be able to be connected over WiFi to a hidden network.

Keenan Hinz This is strange, we had many reporting that hiding the SSID was not working with the latest release, we did not do any changes on the WiFi. I am checking with our developers to confirm that.

Are the super toxic (my adjective) zwave issues resolved in this? Previously when I added my thermostat the whole thing choked needing a full reset and do over. Also I could never see all my zwave devices.

Peet Wright We have fixed the bug itself, meaning when you add the z-wave thermostat it should no longer break anything. There are still UI and other changes needed for z-wave thermostats to be fully supported. Stay tuned for the next updates.

Peet Wright Chances are good that you will be able to edit this in the future. Our target is always that the user does not have to go through a thousand settings before he feels comfortable, it should just be the right way right when NEEO comes out of the box. We, therefore, want to get a feeling for that "feels right".

What do you think about the current dimming? Too dark, too bright, always a good view in bright and dark environments? Looking forward to your feedback.

Patrick Haven't updated yet - in fear of all these data connect issues. I am on a complex network at home - multiple APs, multiple VLANs etc. So if people with just one WIFI network are having issues - I am leery.

Patrick Have updated, but still can't tell if it is dimming or not in dark environments. Maybe the dimming is quite subtle? FWIW, whether dimming or not, the current brightness works for me either way since I just turn the remote over when using in the dark.

Niels de Klerk it’s not about my network in so much as numerous posts about people having connectivity issues. Clans have nothing to do with it but a large corporate type network with multiple APs and my experience thus far (which has been to factory reset the whole neeo system numerous times). At least for now it’s working as a basic remote.

Niels de Klerk Thanks for that - I just saw the posts and didn't read the details yet... but so many were saying issues with wifi, reboots, etc. I just don't have the time to reset and reload all over if I happened upon that luck. I may try it this weekend. Right now all I'm gaining is lighting control (z-wave didn't do me any good on last release) and gambling that I like the dim level of the backlight (current one doesn't bother me). So it's not a very compelling upgrade overall. If full z-wave fix was in (thermostat control being one) then there's a benefit there as we have multiple z-wave thermos.

Peet Wright Did you update yet? We heavily recommend doing so. As far as I can tell based on my experience, almost none of the connectivity issues discussed here on Planet NEEO are related to the latest release.

Only one with a hidden SSID, which we are still exploring cause we didn't do any changes whatsoever in that direction.

I learned some time ago, that the brain still be lost till I report it... then miraculously reappear, making me feel like I should have waited...

Upgrade of brain and remote went as expected. Remote connects to the brain as expected. The app cannot find brain again, 15 minutes after the brain came back online. Found, but cannot connect (why does mine always do this?!?). 🤔

Bill Kaczmarek As is see in the last Picture from your Remote, there are no WiFi credentials / no WiFi Connection. If the brain as trouble joining the WiFi you always got such messages. Would you mind to redo the WiFi Setup? to do so, plug in the RJ45 and do the following:

Set Up WiFi:

Open Menu in the App, select Neeo Brain and select Wifi Setup. Redo the steps required. Best is when an LAN Cable is also connected during this!

To repair your remote go as following:

Power Off the Remote and hold Back and Power ON at the same time until the display shows instuctions, follow them to repair and reload the WiFi credentials to the remote.

Check if the Remote displays the Wifi Bars in the upper right corner beside the vertical Dots (indicating NEEO Link) and recheck if an IP for the remote is visible.

Markus MahrThanks Markus. Given the following, do you still recommend that I redo the wifi setup? (I'm afraid to go looking for trouble!) If you think this will help down the line, I'm glad to do it. Thoughts?

Yes, there was a point where it failed to connect to WiFi - but that seemed to not be until much later on. The initial issue, and most of the time, the app displayed BRAIN FOUND. So, if the app displays BRAIN FOUND, can that really be a problem of a wifi connection failure -- ie if the app next says CONNECTION FAILED ?

I've had this issue before, namely when moving from one room to another and connecting AC again (but not when staying in the same room and power cycling...) Normally it finally connects as soon as I write a complaint ;-)

This time it didn't on its own. Twice power cycling with ethernet plugged in, and then it finally was able to connect. Then with the ethernet cable pulled, it was able to stay online.

Bill Kaczmarek If its is now connected and back Online, i don't think it is neccessary, but if the remote still only shows the dots in the upper right corner, then the remote has only neeo link and no Wifi, for this reason i think best is to redo the wifi setup!

Markus Mahr Thanks Markus. I thought all was good, app and remote both working last night. But then this morning, the app was working with the Brain as expected, but then the Remote couldn't find the Brain. :-/

So I followed your instructions above, for fixing the Remote. All seems to be good now. But one question...

I don't see an IP address field listed on the Remote, only listed in the Router info [see both images below]... I guess that is fine. But if the IP for the Remote is supposed to be visible somewhere else, or I misunderstood anything significant, let me know.

Bill Kaczmarek You Doesn't miss anything, the IP from the Remote is not displayed in the Menues of the NEEO. You only see it when Debug is set to on, but that is not neccessary. As soon as you have the WiFi bars on the remote, the remote is logged into the Router and has an IP, else the Bars are not coming bag.

Your fault seems to be an issue from side of the Brain, therefor Patrick needs to take a closer look.

Bill Kaczmarek I am glad to hear you are up and running again. I will be discussing your issues with our developer team when I meet them tomorrow. I hope I can then give you more feedback on what was going on or on what measures we are taking.

In the engineering sense, there is no need to re-configure WiFi for the moment: "Never touch a running system". 😉 I will let you know if further information would help us.

PatrickRaphael ran the firmware update and the process was smooth. Below are a list of the issues I’ve found and a few comments.

1. Nothing to do with the update but I discovered how to use shortcuts. They are great. Any chance for my cable recipe where I have a shortcut that I can make that page appear first. Doesn’t look like you can reorder pages?

2. My remote was connected to the cradle by didn’t auto update as it should have. I had to do it manually. No biggie but I wanted you to know.

3. The stupid device is now gone which is great.

4. Scrolling content from Sonos on the remote is still limited to a few pages. I had previously reported this. You had mentioned this fix may not make it to this firmware version but wanted you to confirm.

5. Album artwork is painfully slow to load on remote and app.

6. Scrolling works on app.

7. Volume changes do work but the visual white indicator on the playbar is no longer seen.

8. Remote doesn’t always update tack being played but app does. Seems like a load time issue.

9. On remote when you select artist then album your only choice is to play the entire album. You should have tracks below that level.

In summary, lots of good progress but Sonos still has lots of issues on the remote. Please reach out to me directly if you need me to clarify. You should have my cell phone. I’m around this evening.

1. No option available at the moment. There is a Voting for this over here.

2. The Remote only do the Update, when the Brain allready is updated and the remote check this and stay on the Dock. Don't know the timesoan the remote check for new Software when in dock. When you pick it up, it normally ask every time it comes from sleep.

3. Stupid device screen gone, means your device that enables this screen was made "Smart". Did you Update the devices itself? Normally nothing changed during a Software Update.

This should be further observed. Can you check the App and make a screenshoot of the Log?

This should help NEEO to investigate. Therefor go to the menu in the app and select NEEO Event History and make a screenshoot from the display, also go to the about page and report the Hostname of your NEEO (can be found under NEEO Brain). Then the Team is able to check the logs.

Patrick or Raphael should know witch developer can do it. But i guess, they will come back to you on Monday during office Hours in Swiss.

John Harding i added both devices and it seems non of them considered stupid. Else you would see an entry with a power button after launch of the recipe considered one of the devices. Hope this will cleared. But i guess the two informations should be helpfull for the Team to clear everything out.

You don't have a cat, dog, wife, kids or else that should accidentially pressed a button?

Markus Mahr Wife yes. but she doesn't use the home theatre unless im home to watch with her. There's a chance I forgot to turn off the projector and receiver, but I'm doubting it. Especially with the sonos recipies running. Will check the log when I get home.

Unless the team is able to remotely check. That would be fine with me.

John Harding Ok, the team is only able to check the logs, if they have the Hostname. And due to the fact that it is saturday mornign / night (short before 4 AM) i don't think the guys are up and awake. I now had to leave for work. have a nice day!

John Harding that is a very strange event log! Never saw something similar to that. That should be investigated close, but it will start at Monday. If you can stay like that until Swiss Monday would be best to see something, but if you don't like that to do, you can do the update.

And if possible provide the hostname, this helps to investigate the log files and get you a response what eventually was the root cause.

John Harding I have linked the first Person to Contact (Patrick) the CEO (Raphael) and one of the Developers i think they will pay attention to this, but this is the first time this behaviour was obtained. It must be a very rare edge case, hopefully there is something in the logs and they find a fast solution.

Raphael Left the remote in dark home theater room. Picked it up and screen came on. Seems to b on high brightness setting. After 1 minute of on-screen use in dark room, hit it with a cell phone led/flashlight for 1 minute. No perceptible change. Turned off the cell phone light, back to dark room. After 1 minute, no perceptible change.

We have implemented the dimming in a really subtle way, meaning you should never actually see quick changes. The Sensor is located below the hard button "Home" on the NEEO Remote. If you are in a dark room, then take the LED on your smartphone and shine in there for some seconds really close, and then remove the LED, you should see the brightness changing slowly from very bright to darker.

Patrick the dimming must be implemented in a very subtle way because I'm still not seeing it. Regardless, I find the screen generally too bright and especially in a very dark room. When I'm watching movies, I often find myself annoyed by the bright screen and flipping the remote over, as Jon mentioned. Having a brightness slider similar to my Android phone, at least in the settings, would be great.

I turn off my WIFI during the night. In the morning the Remot dos not connect anymore to the brain. After a Reboot of the remote it connects again.

SONOS is still not possible to browse thru Albums, Artist, ... It shows only the first 50. On top its now on the Remote-App on iPhone also not workiung anymore. It shows mor then 50, but it always repeet the same 50-70 artists, and this endless.

Oskar Haldemar Thanks so much. The next firmware release with even more features is already just around the corner (testing it as we speak). Regarding the RF, your understanding is correct, I was referring to several radio frequency related topics. One big topic (which still needs a little bit of resources) is the work related to NEEO link, which is based on a technology called 6LoWPAN. This is a second radio link between the remote and the brain, additionally to both products talking via your home Wifi. This tech bings good stuff such as failover - meaning if you go to the balcony as example - and there is no Wifi signal - all basic functions of the remote will still work. Or - if the Wifi is super slow as example the commands will choose the faster path. This is tech typically not found in consumer products. The gaol is to have a link that is as stable as the top notch industrial grade devices. We don't do it because of the tech though - we do it because the result feels magical. The majority is done but there is still some work to do with the current version and - for now - I personally prefer keeping it (NEEO Link) turned off. I have seen versions of it though that are very close to what we want it to be, so you can look forward to that. For now Wifi works well and using it that way is my current recommendation. PS: The type of work the embedded software team is doing on that one RF topic are things like channel hopping, protocol optimisation, our own pairing mode, mesh networking, encryption and much more. Already today - as example the Wifi credentials - are securely transferred from the brain to the remote via this tech. There is much more RF stuff going on though. Some of it is Z-wave, Wifi related, some work preparing the IEEE 802.15.4 chip for the future and much more. (IEEE 802.15.4 is the physical layer to Zigbee, 6LoWPAN and Thread). PS: Some people use the term RF to describe 433Mhz devices. This is a frequency not natively supported by the NEEO brain. On 433Mhz there are some common standards (radio modulations) but it's not one standard. There are a couple of bridges out there and I'm pretty certain we will see integrations with it too. I believe the app Niels de Klerk has written for homey as example - let's users then trigger many 433Mhz devices. I hope this answers your question.

Raphael its correct. I use Homey to bridge 433mhz and 8##mhz devices to NEEO. I know this can also be Done using an rfxcom on Domoticz and my guess is also with openhab. With Homey and openhab there are NEEO apps/plug-ins allready availeble. Other solutions including the rfxcom on Domoticz are not to hard to write a driver for.

I just build a Halloween setup using NEEO, Sonos, Homey, some Zwave, HUE and 433mhz devices, All working together.

Updated today. Instant Favorites for SONOS is a nice idea. But how do I configure this feature? At the moment only the first four SONOS favorites are shown. Couldn't find an option for configuring other entries. Is this way it should work?

Supplement: The morning after initial setup my NEEO Remote greets me with a blank Instant Favorites screen for SONOS. Yesterday the icons for the first SONOS favorites were shown. But they are all gone. Four blank white squares forming a large blank white screen. Unusable feature so far as you have to guess which part of the touchscreen leeds to which favorite. Yes, they are working. Only the pictures are gone and won't appear even after a while of waiting. Please fix this.

Tobias Vogel To possibility to be able to configure these manually is already in the works, so you should soon be able to do this.

I think the issue you are seeing is also related to one of which we are already aware. That is the reason why we are reworking how images are handled and even more importantly, the image caching and compression on the NEEO Remote.

Maybe you can give a regular updates on which topics/bugs the developers are currently working. I saw this in the homey forum and I really liked the idea. Of course you dont have to give timeframes, but it is nice to know whether you are working on Bug/Feature X or not.